For most of the 1800's France had an almost unbroken string of victories in conflicts, large and small, around the globe. Yet, when the Franco-Prussian war broke out, they were defeated relatively quickly. After the capture of Napoleon III, the Third Republic was formed just so the Prussians had someone they could negotiate the French surrender with. My old history professor laid the claim that it was the difference between the Prussian general staff (modern style) vs the French one (messenger style) that was the reason for the Prussian victory.
More specifically, the Prussians had plans laid, and supplies ready, for an invasion of France before the war broke out. Wouldn't the French also have such plans?
The French had a large number of experienced officers and men with a huge history of victories behind them.
The Prussians by comparison had fought only a handful of wars in the last 50 years.
This is the era of the "Napoleonic tactics", but was there a difference in the tactics or weapons used by the two armies that contributed to the one-sided nature of the war?
To be clear, my old professor was only pointing out the Franco-Prussian war as one of the events that led to WWI, and why the region of Alsace-Lorraine was so important. He did not give very many details, but what led to the French defeat has always puzzled me.
There were many, many reasons.
The first was the numerical advantage. The French empire mobilised soldiers very slowly. During the final days of Napoleon III, they were able to field around 400,000 soldiers with 300,000 reserves. In the same amount of time, Prussia managed to field almost a million.
Secondly, like your teacher said, was of Prussia’s advantage was their style and on top of that discipline. Prussia had been preparing for the war for a while since it became inevitable. France was far behind, the marshals being overconfident even though their strategy was outdated. France had a voluntary system, which Napoleon III tried to reform in 1867 only to fail asf the parliament dismissed his proposal to conscript. Most of the soldiers were poor, old, and suffered from a major lack in discipline.
Not only did Prussia’s conscription system enable a larger army to be fielded, but effective and adequate training, as well as more professional generals allowed them to have the tactical advantage over France. The only advantage France had against Prussia was infantry. Prussia had a far more advanced cavalry and artillery, and combined with their organised military worked all very well. France suffered from incompetence in the army, with the cavalry and artillery lagging behind and competitive generals whose string of command during the war was terrible and inconsistent.
When the war broke out, France was in no state to fight, even the emperor tried to avoid fighting and was very reluctant to even sign the declaration. The French didn’t even have proper maps of their own country, and the generals had no proper plan to invade the German states, which along with chaotic mobilisation, numerical disadvantage, and the less modern artillery and cavalry, led to a very limited victory at Saarbrücken before being run over.
Fast forward a month, and the emperor was captured at Sedan. This battle was decisive not only because it captured the head of state, but also the remaining 80,000 soldiers in the army of Chalons. When the French Republic was declared, 120,000 soldiers were trapped in Metz, and 130,000 soldiers ate sedan were gone, either killed, wounded, imprisoned in Germany, or disarmed after leaving to Belgium. This left the new French Republic with a very small amount of soldiers who all formed their own militias, and no longer with a unified government or strong army, the Germans ploughed through the French lands effortlessly